I have just added a new BBcode to the forum which allows you to embed videos into your posts. Here's one I found on youtube I thought you might enjoy, it is of a deer at night being startled by a badger.
This isn't my video, it was made by youtube user sac43.
It's interesting to watch how the deer appears very cautious, then hears something which I assume is the badger and bolts, just before the badger pokes his head out as if to say "what's going on?".
To embed your own videos, type in [ EVid ]video address[ /EVid ] (without the spaces). If it's not your video please credit the author.
Great video, do you know how the person who made it got it? Did they leave a camera up all the time? If so, I bet they have some great videos of the badgers.
I don't know actually, although I would think it would be up and running for long period of time, unless the author got extremely lucky. I will try and find out though.
It must be a camera set up or you would be waiting for hours. It's great seeing wildlife like this, it makes you imagine the things that go in woods at night time what you wouldn't even know about!
I wonder how easy it is to set something like this up?
I've just received and email from Xeract, with regard to my video headed Deer and Badgers that I posted on Youtube. So I thought I would take a few mins, join the forum and answer some of the questions.
This is an edited part of a video I recorded in June last year, the second part is Fox and Badgers, (also posted on Youtube). I live in Suffolk, although unfortunately to protect the Badgers I'm a bit cagey about exactly where. I seem to be very lucky in that I don't have any problems finding Badgers as I have three sets on my land, never the less I still find them interesting to watch. In answer to one question, the video's are not filmed all night I just set up the camera and lighting about an hour or so before the Badgers are due to pop out.
The reason for this is that I use a Mustek PVR H-140 digital media player/recorder to record the video's, and whilst this does give really good DVD quality results, for some reason the manufacturers decided to restrict it to recording video's with a maximum length of four hours at a time. I have no idea why, as it has a 40gb hard drive in it and could quite happily record for about a week if it wasn't restricted in this way.
These are now out of production but can be picked up on places like EBay for about £100, and they are very similar to the recorders by Archos.
Any way. What I do is go up to the woods with all my equipment in the wheel barrow, (its about a five hundred yard walk), put it up and sit myself down in my deck chair with a flask of coffee and some snacks and wait, (about 30 yards away behind the trees in the top right hand corner of the video). The PVR H-140 has a small screen so I can see what's going on, and in fact I was there watching when the Deer turned up. If you look at the video you can see that it is actually split into two parts, these are only about 5 min's apart but as it was getting dark, you can see that it is darker towards the end of the film.
I have the recorder going all the time I'm sitting there, and when I get fed up (or my coffee and snacks run out) I just start the recorder on its four hour stint and retire.
The camera I use is a Silent Witness/Honeywell HCD81, I am in the CCTV business so this was not to hard to come by for me, but they are about £500. This is a true day and night camera, in that in the day light the picture is colour and then as it gets dark the filters are removed from the CCD sensor and it changes to monocrome and becomes Infra-Red sensitive. This camera also has built in Infra-Red LED's although i do use additional Infra-Red lighting.
There is no reason why very similar results cannot be gained from a camera that costs far less than this. I have used this one because it was available to me via my work, but again I would say that a very good quality camera could be obtained on EBay for a lot less than £100, I would also say not to be afraid of getting one on EBay that comes from the Far East, at the end of the day nearly all our electrical bits come from there anyway and the saving can be considerable. However if you go to the extreme and buy a £20 camera you are likely to get £20 results.
I use what was originally a 70 watt 12 volt Dennard Infra-Red lamp, however this kills the batteries far to quickly so I replaced the bulb with a normal 20 watt down lighter bulb the same as you get in the down lighters in your kitchen( I wonder how many people are now thinking how does he know I've got down lighters in my kitchen?) But you can now get very good LED Infra-Red illuminators very cheaply.
If you look at the Deer and Badgers video you can see the Infra-Red lamp reflecting in the tree in the top centre of the picture. It is important to try to get good over all lighting, there is nothing to be gained from having a powerful spot light shining in the centre of your picture, Whilst the Infra-red lighting is invisible to us (and the wildlife) to the camera it would be like looking into car head lights and the iris on the lens will just shut down, the same way as your eyes would.
I use 17 ah lead acid batteries (x2) to power all my kit, the camera and the lamp are both 12 volt but the PVR-140 has a built in battery and comes with a 5 volt mains charger. Rather that mess about getting a car adapter for it and then having to chop it about to connect it to my batteries i just got a small 150 watt inverter and connected that to the battery and plugged the power supply into that.
Obviously its quite an event to lug all this lot up the woods and set it up, but I've practiced in my garden before hand, and now I've got everything how I want it and all the bits in one place, its not as daunting now as it was when i started.
I'm looking forward to some snow so I can give it a go when I know that the snow on the ground will give much lighter results, plus it will be nice to see what the Badgers think of it.
If you are thinking of setting something up to do a similar job, i can say that to sit in the woods in the dark watching something that you know is going on only 30 yards away has its rewards.
I would also say that from experience, Badgers are not that hard to get close to, they are as blind as Bats and I have been standing less than 5 yards from a Set and they have been completely unaware of my being there until I've moved away. What I would say is, that I can go out in the evening, with almost certainty of seeing some Badgers at some point, but only ever when I have been on my own, it just doesn't seem possible for two people to keep quiet enough not to disturb them.
Any way i hope this has answered some of your questions about how the films were made. I enjoyed making them, and I'm glad to have the chance to show others the results and give any advice I can to anyone else who would like to do the same thing.
Great stuff!! I've been itching to do something like this for a while. I want to do a set up on my local stretch, see if i could capture Otters.
I love Mammal watching, i usually take a lamp out at night with a yellow filter. I have been thinking of purchasing Nightsights, been told to stay away from the infra-red as this spooks Badgers and Deers? It dosen't look like in your clip, or have they become accustomed to the light?
Here is another video recorded from the same night by Sac43. It really intrigues me how the badgers and foxes seem to live in such close proximity to each other.
The Foxes live in an older part of the same Set, about 15 yards to the left of the view in the video's. I understand that this is quite common, although this Set is so huge that there is plenty of space for all.
I have counted Nine badgers at one time at this Set, but it is plenty big enough to hold more, in another Set in two of my other video's I have counted Six at the same time, although I have only recorded five in the video's.
The video I am now attempting to post here, shows just how much digging has been done at this Set, there are over 20 holes around an area about 25 yards in diameter, the scale of the digging cannot be fully appreciated in the video, but all of these small hills are the result of digging.
IIhad no idea that they lived so close to each other, even if different parts of the same set! They seem to get on fine dont they? Although I know who my money would be on if they didnt.
I have counted Nine badgers at one time at this Set, but it is plenty big enough to hold more, in another Set in two of my other video's I have counted Six at the same time, although I have only recorded five in the video's.
The video I am now attempting to post here, shows just how much digging has been done at this Set, there are over 20 holes around an area about 25 yards in diameter, the scale of the digging cannot be fully appreciated in the video, but all of these small hills are the result of digging.
It's amazing how many holes there are dug, and I also find it intriguing that foxes and bagders both inhabit the same set. Have you ever filmed any real intereaction between them?
Thanks for taking the time to give all this information and detail on how you achieve these amazing videos of this wonderful animals...im sorry to say, if honest, i dont understand anything described about the equipment used although sounds fascinating...but im a bit of a techno airhead when it comes down to this sort of thing.
Once again many thanks, and good luck with future projects.
